More batshittery from UCU....

[KStockHERO]

Motions 46-48 from this year's Congress are, ahem, interesting.

https://www.ucu.org.uk/media/14443/Agenda/pdf/AGENDA_.pdf

It's also been interesting to compare the frequency of terms which apply to our sector and its current state, with those pertaining to the Middle East situation:
"Palest" = 75 mentions
"Israel" = 53 mentions
"Gaza" = 23 mentions
"Genocid" = 23 mentions

"Workload" = 17 mentions
"Redundanc" = 20 mentions
"Deficit" = 1 mention
"Closure" = 7 mentions
"Stress" = 1 mention

What an absolute shitshow.

As a disabled person, I did have a little laugh at the 'disabled persons standing committee'

I can't remember why I was browsing MN but joined just so I can reply to this post!

I can't bring myself to join UCU because of their political shit-housery. What's going on in Gaza is awful, but what exactly has it to do with our pay and pensions? This should be the only concern of a union!

I'll give them credit for the pension restoration and I joined the strikes but I can never bring myself to pay subs when they talk about middle-eastern geopolitics and trans-rights more than they do about the sorry state of HE.

@ADadActually I love that you joined MN just to comment on this 😍

Absolutely agree with you - the awful situation in the ME is very far removed from academics' working lives, pay, conditions and pensions which is what a trade union should be focusing on.

I wouldn't mind so much if UCU Congress had stuck their oar into other international incidents and issues but they're comparatively quiet - or actually silent - on other issues while they wank themselves dry over the Israel/Gaza situation.

@Snooglequack Didn't clock that - that's kind of hilarious!

I’ve reached the end point with it all. I am looking for jobs outside of academia and plan not to be working at a Uni in the next academic year. UCU is ineffective, staff that leave are not being replaced, teaching load is only going to go up and research time will disappear. My Uni is in a good place financially but complains that staff ‘cost them too much’ and the money, that we help generate through our hard work with students and research is not for us.

so I’m off.

But at least UCU is on it with international politics.

I left the UCU a year ago and don’t regret it. It was a tough decision - I’ve never not been in a union, but really!

When universities are burning down (metaphorically) and the arts and humanities in particular are being decimated and the UCU is pursuing anti-Semitic and anti-woman policy debates ????

@KStockHERO "wank themselves dry over the Israel/Gaza situation" - I almost spat my tea over the keyboard at that one 😂
@LCM001a Almost everyone I work with is considering the VES offer currently on the table. I've got a research project I want to finish but am considering it - it's....bleak!
@YellowAsteroid I was also a member but stopped paying subs when I looked at minutes for a local branch meeting was all about Palestine and ending capitalism and I thought: these people aren't interested in solving any real problems.

I worry about working with students without the legal cover that being in a Union gives you.

@KStockHERO 😂

@Snooglequack I'd be pretty certain that would have taken hours of committee time to think of, and the irony would have gone over their heads 😂

@ADadActually I've not been there long enough for any payout, I only moved into academia this year. I just feel that if I stay I will end up with projects at various stages of completion and it will never be the right time. I'm going to sell out and go for a well paid, non-teaching research job (I hope) where no one is allowed to send in anonmous offensive feedback because I wouldn't spoon feed them or be their personal secretary. And people put their phones down when I talk to them. Don't hear the UCU talking about how students can say what they like about us no matter how offensive and there is never any comeback.

Don't hear the UCU talking about how students can say what they like about us no matter how offensive and there is never any comeback.

I once contacted UCU because the Students Union at my place set up a website to “help” students choose option modules. It allowed students to leave reviews of specific modules and tutors, rather like Rate My Professor does in the US. The UCU person couldn’t see why this was a problem and then ignored me when I enquired as to whether members could avail themselves of UCU’s legal services were defamatory comments to be published.

OMG, you could not make it up could you.

@LCM001a Have a lovely time outside of academia! I'm in social sciences so there isn't a clear jobs market outside of academia. And I largely find it a pretty comfortable, easy place to be. But I'm looking forward to fucking off in ten years time.

@GCAcademic Wow. No words.

These are the reasons I moved to affinity. I also can’t stand Jo Grady.

I have left the UCU and academia over this. The blood was barely dry after the Hamas attacks on Israel before the Liverpool UCU branch was calling an EGM. As a gender critical Jewish woman, academia just isn't the place for me.

90 pages of everything under the sun and so little of it to do with our working conditions. The breathtaking egoism and commensurate hand wringing about all the global evils as somehow appropriate for a union’s work. This is not what I want to spend my union dues on and batshittery is a perfect description. Not to mention how ‘academic freedom’ is somehow an objective to be undermined. By a union representing academics. This may be the time I stop being a union member after two decades of paying union dues….

The ‘manifestos’ were like something out of a goody goody virtue signalling sketch not an employment union. How Grady managed to stay in after the recent carry on is complexes me.

I was absolutely shocked Grady got re-elected when she’s been utterly abysmal in terms of actual pay negotiations and wasting all those strike dates.

I knew things were bad in UCU when a colleague who I deeply respect and who has been UCU rep for our school for a long time declared she couldn’t support them or be a part of them anymore. That was after the nightmare stuff at the annual conference, was it last year or the year before? I can’t remember

I’m really sorry to read that @PurpleChrayn but you’re not the only one. I know a couple of Jewish women who’ve left UK academia or retired early.

I left UCU over the strikes last year. I thought they were misguided and punished the wrong people. I was very ambivalent about leaving but just couldn’t stay and not go on strike and I thought going on strike was a bonkers action.

Reading the latest, I’m not so ambivalent any more.

Absolutely.
I left UCU a long while ago so didn't really give too much of a shit. But it was interesting to watch from the sidelines. It was pure cringe.

Well it makes a change from proposing witch hunts to track down gender critical staff.

Seriously though, UCU are shocking. Far too busy scoring points on anything other than academia mostly, although I should be thankful for that. When they do sully themselves with academic matters, it’s only to be utterly hysterical.

They’re doing that as well. They must be exhausted.

Quite. Imagine how effective they could be if they dedicated as much time, brain power and venom towards actual academic matters as they do to witch hunting women and demanding ceasefires in far-flung war zones.

I might be incredibly humourless, but is giving motion 4 a 'joke' title really appropriate, especially since it's one of the few that actually is about the core job of a union?

UCU makes me despair. I left while I was still an academic because I didn't want to give up any more pay or student time for strikes with no route to any possible success - that was 2017 and I was right that there were many more pointless strikes to come! A nail in the coffin at the time was that I asked the UCU rep a question related to the strikes and pregnancy and it was very clear that he'd never even read our institutional maternity policy, but happily gave me entirely incorrect 'advice' which was actually just to shame me for not striking, but which would have risked lowering my maternity pay if I'd followed it. He's now the branch secretary of a different institution, so that's nice. Anyway, I'm PS now so despite being on the academic payscale and having a USS pension UCU has made it very clear that they don't give a shit about PS staff.

It’s time academic and support staff set set up their own, independent workers’ representative groups. GMB and Unison behave better but achieve no more.

It is impossible to engage constructively with the UCU nowadays.

It will be interesting to see where Jacqui Smith goes with her new portfolio.